The CTC Blog

Welcome to CTC Blog - the place to share experiences, examples, tools, ideas, and advice about approaches to engineering messaging. Learn from and connect with people who have embraced the CTC Report recommendations and are promoting a more positive and accurate image of engineering and engineers.

CTC Blog is a place for constructive engagement among people who believe that engineering is a profession that "makes a world of difference." Community members are expected to behave professionally and those who cannot do so will be asked to leave. NAE reserves the right to delete posts but takes no responsibility for the content appearing within these posts.

The NAE has outlined 14 game-changing opportunities for the 21st century called the Grand Challenges for Engineering. We want you to select at least one of them and in 1-2 minutes show us how engineering will create a more sustainable, healthy, secure and/or joyous world in the future! The Grand Prize video will win $25,000!

What do a robotic dog and fifth-grade students have to do with Changing the Conversation? Nothing until now, when the comic strip “Bleeker the Rechargeable Dog” started featuring engineering as a topic for a classroom project.

With support from the United Engineering Foundation, the NAE has been working this year to find ways to better reach the engineering community about Changing the Conversation. One of the things we’re doing, with help from National Engineers Week Foundation, is develop a train-the-trainer curriculum. Engineering organizations will be able to use the training module to conduct face-to-face or virtual education sessions with employees and members. And these folks will then be equipped to take the message about messaging to broader audiences.

The training has been pilot tested twice so far, once face to face at a Future City Coordinator's retreat and a second time by webinar for members of the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE). The training reviews what is known about public understanding of engineering, summarizes the demographics of the field, and highlights the results of the 2008 Changing the Conversation report. It also provides examples of how engineering ...

People who are trying to "change the conversation" are always on the lookout for evidence that their efforts are working. If you have data about what messaging efforts have been studied and shown to have real impact, share this information with us here.

If you've got a story to tell about your own work making creative, empowering materials that get people interested in engineering, or if you know someone who has, let us know. CTC project staff will get in touch to discuss whether it make sense to create a formal case study for the website.

This area of the site is reserved for participants of the November 30/December 1 workshop to leave feedback about the website. Please share what you like about the site, what didn't work for you, or any questions you have that it doesn't answer.

On Feb. 8, President Obama addressed a meeting of the Deans Council of the American Society for Engineering Education in Washington, D.C. “For every Steve Jobs, we need 10,000 engineers who maybe are working a little more quietly but nevertheless are able to create the kind of products and services that improve people’s lives and also make sure our economy goes well,” he said.

The challenge, the President added, is attracting more young people into the field. “How can we reach into communities that currently aren’t producing a lot of engineers?" In these brief remarks, the president revealed a deep understanding not only of what engineers do and their value to society but also of the need to boost awareness and opportunities for girls and under-represented groups to participate in the field.

In other, more public speeches, including the recent State of the Union address, Mr. Obama has called out engineering as essential to addressing some ...

As I write this blog entry in July 2011 the unemployment rate is disturbingly stuck at just above nine percent, the 17th straight month it’s been at – or very near – that number.

I can imagine it must be frustrating to employers of engineers and other technical workers to see this many Americans out of work and to only have limited ability to help. To acquire the type of skills and talents needed, these same employers increasingly must look to candidates outside of the U.S. This type of structural unemployment has long existed, of course, but seems to be amplified as the STEM industries that have come to dominate the economy become more and more advanced.

Our leaders in government and industry are aware of this gap – the president himself continues to beat the drum that we can innovate our way out of the slump we’re in – and we’d like to recognize the folks at Ford for a recent effort to foster the skills of home-grown young people.